People News Torment Kickstarter Update #49: Kevin Saunders leaves inXile, replaced by Chris Keenan

[Deleted member 7219]

I think it is healthy for the industry that great game designers like Chris Avellone, Kevin Saunders and George Ziets move about between studios. It may mean that their lives are a bit more stressful, moving between jobs, but it means they get to spread their talents around a bit.

I don't believe that about every job - I work for a software company and want to see talented people stay, so we can keep making our own products better - but it may be true for game design where you spend 3 to 5 years working on a title and then you stop and you work on something entirely different.

 

[Crooked Bee]

ksaun You (and other Developers) should now be able to edit your own title, as well as upload attachments and custom avatars. So, feel free to edit your title to whatever you want. (And if that doesn't work, do let me know.)

 

[evdk]

NSFW

Last edited by a moderator: 6 minutes ago

Seriously?

 

[Fairfax]

I think it is healthy for the industry that great game designers like Chris Avellone, Kevin Saunders and George Ziets move about between studios. It may mean that their lives are a bit more stressful, moving between jobs, but it means they get to spread their talents around a bit.

I don't believe that about every job - I work for a software company and want to see talented people stay, so we can keep making our own products better - but it may be true for game design where you spend 3 to 5 years working on a title and then you stop and you work on something entirely different.

Problem is that RPG studios are a small world, and moving from town to town is tough on the families. Not saying they have to work on RPGs forever, of course, but if that's what they want, it's not that easy. OC has InXile and Obsidian, basically. Blizzard, if you want to include that..

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Problem is that RPG studios are a small world, and moving from town to town is tough on the families. Not saying they have to work on RPGs forever, of course, but if that's what they want, it's not that easy. OC has InXile and Obsidian, basically. Blizzard, if you want to include that..

Blizzard probably isn't the best fit for Obsidian/inXile/Black Isle minded developers. Plenty of talented people work for Blizzard, of course, but they are all about the profit margins now. I don't see them making a proper RPG ever again.

 

[ArchAngel]

Shhh... you weren't supposed to tell! (Does the Codex permit multiple accounts by the same physical person or is one of my personalities going to be blocked now?)

I heard Paradox wants to make a couple of World of Darkness games. I am sure you are qualified to help with that

 

[Fairfax]

ksaun
Senior Game Designer (Systems) - Blizzard Entertainment (Hearthstone)
Senior Game Designer - Blizzard Entertainment (WoW)
Senior Producer - DICE Los Angeles
Senior Designer, Amazon Game Studios
Senior Designer - Insomniac Games
Technical Designer - Cloud Imperium Games
Lead Level Designer - Ready At Dawn

Blizzard probably isn't the best fit for Obsidian/inXile/Black Isle minded developers. Plenty of talented people work for Blizzard, of course, but they are all about the profit margins now. I don't see them making a proper RPG ever again.

Agreed, but from what I hear, it's a good environment and they pay well. Not ideal for RPG devs, but for the time being, who knows.

 

[Infinitron]

I heard Paradox wants to make a couple of World of Darkness games. I am sure you are qualified to help with that

You may have misunderstood the nature of the World of Darkness deal. Paradox aren't an RPG developer - the studio that makes games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis isn't going to put together a team to make "Bloodlines 2".

 

[Hobo Elf]

You may have misunderstood the nature of the World of Darkness deal. Paradox aren't an RPG developer - the studio that makes games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis isn't going to put together a team to make "Bloodlines 2".

Why not? Just because they didn't make RPGs in the past doesn't mean that they can't make them in the future. They may not even make an RPG, as crazy as that sounds. They might even just use the IPs and make a game in a different genre.

 

[Infinitron]

They might even just use the IPs and make a game in a different genre.

Maybe, but that's not what we want Kevin to make, right?

I'm just saying, some people might be thinking this is a "Bethesda buys Fallout IP to make Fallout sequel"-type deal, but as far as I can see, that isn't the case here. They seem to have bought the IP for the licensing opportunities, not to make a particular blockbuster game with it. And a Bloodlines 2 would need to be an RPG with AAA-like production qualities - lots of voiced dialogue, choices, cinematic animations, 3D exploration. That's really not what Paradox do.

 

[Somberlain]

Maybe he should join that Australian company to help them finish their 600 hour RPG masterpiece. They were called Golden Shower Games or something.

 

[Mustawd]

Maybe he should join that Australian company to help them finish their 600 hour RPG masterpiece. They were called Golden Shower Games or something.

Game's almost done. Barely a few more microissues left. So there's really nothing ksaun can help with.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Look at my join date. That should indicate just about how much I have experience with these names.

Quick crib sheet:

Obsidian Entertainment: Former Interplay/Black Isle vets. Closest we have to a continuation of the RPG surge of the late 90s/early 2000s. Versatile developers, they can make classic RPGs (Pillars of Eternity), first person shooter RPGs (Fallout New Vegas), action RPGs (Dungeon Siege 3) and mixtures of all of them (KOTOR 2, NWN 2). Mask of the Betrayer is often regarded as their greatest achievement here on the Codex.

Kevin Saunders: Design Lead on Mask of the Betrayer, hence why he is so respected in these parts

George Ziets: Creative Lead on Mask of the Betrayer, responsible for some of the most amazing moments in that game. Often regarded as a Chris Avellone-in-training due to his originality and rejection of generic RPG tropes and cliches.

Chris Avellone: God

Brian Fargo: Without him, we wouldn't have Chris Avellone, Fallout, Torment or the modern Kickstarter RPG rennaisance. He is not a designer but he recognises good people, good ideas and he encourages them. Tim Cain credits him with suggesting many of the good things in Fallout, like the perks system.

Tim Cain: The guy chiefly responsible for Fallout.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Brian did contribute some (dungeon?) design for the Bard's Tale series, if memory serves. But yeah, he's the producer / businessman type above all.

 

[kaizoku]

.

reading that tweet reminded me of this finale

there is only one way to fix it

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Considering the gamble he took in uprooting his life to take the job I'd hardly wager a cent that this was HIS choice. Man.

*looks at Wasteland 2*

*looks at unfinished Torment game*

*looks at Wasteland 2*



Fuck.

 

[Daedalos]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/overreact

Overreact

verb (used without object)
1. To react or respond more strongly than is necessary or appropriate.

 

[Goral]

If inXile (read: Brian Fargo) treats its employees that way I'm not going to buy their games any more (yeah, I know they will be deeply saddened by this fact). For comparison this is how it looked like in Troika:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=130

Tim, Leonard, and Jason really saw a lot of problems occur at Interplay regarding salary, royalties, and general team understanding of how and why decisions were made. They wanted to make sure nothing was in the dark at Troika Games. I don't think many people know this, but on Arcanum, everyone at the company made the same salary and had the same percentage of royalties. Anyone at the company could look through the books at any time and see exactly how much we cost to run. Even on the production side, anyone could question any decision made. There were pro's and con's to this, but in general I still hold a lot of that original Troika sentiment. If you hire a small group of intelligent, experienced people, you can keep everything in the open. It builds a level of trust and feeling of truly belonging to a family. You really feel like you are working together to create something.

I'm starting to think that Militiades was based on Fargo.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't understand. Are you suggesting that people couldn't get fired (or "resigned") at Troika?

 

[serch]

Ksaun made an awesome work with MotB. Strange and harsh decision.

 

[Goral]

I don't understand. Are you suggesting that people couldn't get fired (or "resigned") at Troika?

Were they fired? And were project leaders tossed out on a whim? From what I can read the atmosphere there was perfect, which showed by Troika producing 3 excellent games.

 

[Infinitron]

Eheh. I'm not sure if Troika is the best example of the benefits of not being strict with your project leaders.

 

[Goral]

From a gamer's perspective it is.

 

[ArchAngel]

Were they fired? And were project leaders tossed out on a whim? From what I can read the atmosphere there was perfect, which showed by Troika producing 3 excellent games.

You mean 3 buggy games that were made excellent by modders?

 

[Fairfax]

You mean 3 buggy games that were made excellent by modders?

Beats Obsidian's ratio of 7 buggy games and only 2 made excellent by modders.